Auckland becomes the world’s most liveable city

Auckland becomes the world’s most liveable city
2021-06-10T05:41:28+00:00

Shafaq News/ New Zealand has reported just 26 deaths from the Covid-19, roughly one out of every 200,000 people. On many days this year, it has not recorded a single new case. One of those days was March 19th—a time when many countries were still enforcing strict lockdowns, but Auckland was already permitting concerts. The Economist reported.

A new survey of “liveability” in 140 cities by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, gives mathematical weight to such a claim. For the first time, Auckland leads the EIU’s ranking, thanks largely to the city’s early containment of the pandemic and to its subsequent ability to lift restrictions on mobility. 

Other cities saw their ratings tumble as the effect of the pandemic dramatically curtailed the quality of life for their residents.

Lockdowns imposed around the world lowered cities' scores in the survey's "culture and environment" category.

For example, Vienna crashed out of the top 10 entirely, coming in 12th as New Zealand, Australia and Japan cities fared best.

The Austrian capital had led the list since 2018 and for years ran neck and neck with Melbourne at the top of the survey of 140 urban centers.

Osaka, Adelaide, Tokyo and Wellington are rounding out the top five, just after Auckland.

Damascus remains the world's least liveable city and most of the previous ten least liveable cities remain in the bottom ten this year, including Dhaka and Karachi in the Asia-Pacific region, as per the 2021 edition of The Economist Intelligence Unit's (The EIU) Global Liveability Ranking.

However, overall, the COVID-19 pandemic caused liveability to decline - as cities experienced lockdowns and significant strains on their healthcare system. This led to an unprecedented level of change in the rankings, with many of the cities that were previously ranked as the most liveable tumbling.

European and Canadian countries fared particularly poorly in this year's edition. Vienna, previously the world's most liveable city, fell to the 12th position. The biggest mover down the ranking globally was Hamburg, which fell 34 places to 47th.

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